20-03-2021, 11:12 PM
I was thinking about line alignment - in particular of the cases where lines are interrupted by images, and how vords are very neatly fit against those images, with no large gaps. In other words, the length of the vord immediately preceding the interruption often, if not always, turns to be exact fit for the available space.
In my opinion this is remarkable, but at the moment I cannot make anything of this.
Another simple observation shows that linebreaks as observed in the VMS have emerged in the process of writing the VMS - in other words, they have not been replicated from elsewhere. Let me explain this in more detail.
Where there are no images, the length of the lines in a given folio is pretty uniform - which is perhaps common for contemporary manuscripts - scribes managed to maintain the length without hyphenation (with hyphenation, of course, that's just trivial). In languages with shorter words (on average), such as Middle High German, that is easier to fulfill, and when words are, on average, longer - such as in Latin, the increasing complexity of maintaining the length of the line can be managed with abbreviation. Anyway, for now it's just sufficient to note that the VMS generally maintains the "width alignment" with the accuracy of a couple of characters - which is less than the average vord length.
Now, consider, for example, f8r, line 2.
![[Image: image.jpg?ref=f8r&q=f8r-130-490.8000030517578-1040-402]](https://voynich.ninja/extractor/image.jpg?ref=f8r&q=f8r-130-490.8000030517578-1040-402)
After sho the line is interrupted by the image. Suppose the lines have been transferred to the VMS from some original text with linebreaks preserved. In that case, the two original lines being initially of the same length, they would have been of the same length in the VMS as well, were the second line not interrupted by the image. But insofar the second line is interrupted by the image, the second line would have been longer than the first one, because it now must include the additional space occupied by the portion of the image. However, this is not the case. The second line is right-aligned with the first line.
Consequently, if one supposes that the VMS text is text copied from elsewhere, then the line breaks as we now see them are not the same (or, let's say, are not necessarily the same) as in that hypothetical original sample.
In my opinion this is remarkable, but at the moment I cannot make anything of this.
Another simple observation shows that linebreaks as observed in the VMS have emerged in the process of writing the VMS - in other words, they have not been replicated from elsewhere. Let me explain this in more detail.
Where there are no images, the length of the lines in a given folio is pretty uniform - which is perhaps common for contemporary manuscripts - scribes managed to maintain the length without hyphenation (with hyphenation, of course, that's just trivial). In languages with shorter words (on average), such as Middle High German, that is easier to fulfill, and when words are, on average, longer - such as in Latin, the increasing complexity of maintaining the length of the line can be managed with abbreviation. Anyway, for now it's just sufficient to note that the VMS generally maintains the "width alignment" with the accuracy of a couple of characters - which is less than the average vord length.
Now, consider, for example, f8r, line 2.
After sho the line is interrupted by the image. Suppose the lines have been transferred to the VMS from some original text with linebreaks preserved. In that case, the two original lines being initially of the same length, they would have been of the same length in the VMS as well, were the second line not interrupted by the image. But insofar the second line is interrupted by the image, the second line would have been longer than the first one, because it now must include the additional space occupied by the portion of the image. However, this is not the case. The second line is right-aligned with the first line.
Consequently, if one supposes that the VMS text is text copied from elsewhere, then the line breaks as we now see them are not the same (or, let's say, are not necessarily the same) as in that hypothetical original sample.